Big News at ApacheCon

Jim Jagielski writes: "It was at the closing plenary of ApacheCon
2000, in Orlando FL, that a long-anticipated release of software was
announced: an alpha release of Apache 2.0. With a few short
keystrokes, the Apache Software Foundation announced to the crowd of
developers at AC2K that Apache 2.0a was available for download."
To many Apache devotees, the announcement of an Apache 2.0 release,
even an alpha, is news that has been eagerly awaited for several
years. It was way back in 1996 that the Apache Group (now the Apache
HTTPD Server Project, of the Apache Software Foundation) realized the
advantages of a threaded implementation for Apache. It was also in
that same year that Robert S. Thau released to a few Apache developers
'apache-XX', his experimental, but pretty robust, threaded Apache
implementation. Although the current 2.0a codebase doesn't utilize any
of the actual code of that distribution, that experimental server
served to provide some clues and inspiration to the 2.0 design
process, as well as to the GNU Pth project, which looked to RST's
threading library for some implementation ideas. Along the way,
development on 2.0 would ramp up and cool down for many reasons, one
of which was the popularity of the 1.3 codebase and the developer
resources required to keep that code mature and worthwhile.

But Apache 2.0 is more than just a "threaded Apache." In fact, Apache
2.0 is designed to accommodate several different types of "process
models" called MPMs. You can, for example, have Apache 2.0 use the
old 1.3 method of preforking UNIX processes to handle HTTP
requests. You can also use a combination of processes and threads, if
that's a better solution for your OS.

Apache 2.0 also includes the new Apache Portable Runtime library,
called (wait for it...) APR. The inclusion of APR allows 2.0 ports to
such OSes as BeOS and Win32 to be much more robust than the current
implementations. It also greatly simplifies the entire porting
process, especially to non-UNIX platforms. The entire framework of
2.0, in fact, even allows for Apache to be truly multi-protocol, and
not "just" a web server.

Or, at least, all that good stuff WILL happen, once the Apache 2.0
codebase continues through its alpha and beta cycle. It's important to
recall that this 2.0 release is an ALPHA release. "It was very
important," said Ryan Bloom, Apache Group member and one of the
driving forces behind 2.0, "for us to get the source out to developers
as soon as possible." Even though 2.0a has been used and tested by
many of the ASF members, the real development cycle doesn't start,
almost by definition since Apache is Open Source, until the source is
available to the entire OS community. And there was no better time,
and no better audience to announce to, than the ApacheCon 2000
Conference.

It is hoped that, with outside developer feedback and patches from the
alpha release, a true beta release of 2.0 will be available in short
order, and a true final release later on this year. One obstacle which
the Apache Group faces is that, as far as anything with the Apache
name on it is concerned, the term "beta" doesn't have the same
definition as it does for other software. The fact that Apache beta
releases have been as stable and as robust as they have been is in
fact a feather (and a multi-colored one, for that matter) in the
developers' collective caps. But it also puts some undue "pressure" on
what constitutes a beta quality release for the Apache 2.0 code. With
the release of 2.0 alpha, the group hopes to get back into a more
"standard" beta cycle, with frequent releases of new betas.

There is still much work to be done for 2.0, but the release of this
alpha jump starts the development process. Having the code work
correctly under FreeBSD and with 3rd party modules will most likely be
the first areas tackled by the community. But even more importantly,
it takes the energy, excitement, and enthusiasm of everyone working on
Apache to higher levels. 2.0 gives developers a new sand box to play
in, a new code base to hack on, and a new project to lead the way to
world domination.

Jim Jagielski has been active in
the 'Net community since the mid 80s. He's contributed to several Open
Source projects, the most noteworthy being the Apache HTTPd Server, on
which he's been a core developer since 1995. He also serves as the
Exec VP and Secretary of the Apache Software Foundation. Jim is
President of jaguNET Access Services (www.jaguNET.com) and CTO of
OneStopSite (www.onestopsite.com), a
Web-technologies and services company. He is also a freelance writer
and presenter.

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